


Sweet As Blood Upon The Tongue

by TheSilverQueen



Series: Hannigram Big/Reverse Bangs [6]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: (what else is new), Alpha Will Graham, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood Drinking, Character Turned Into Vampire, Don't copy to another site, Hannibal Frames Will, Hannigram A/B/O Reverse Bang, M/M, Omega Hannibal Lecter, Vampire Will Graham
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:01:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25058890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSilverQueen/pseuds/TheSilverQueen
Summary: “Were you – are you – was that you volunteering to be a – a human blood bag?” Will stammers.“A human gauge,” Hannibal corrects swiftly. “As to whether or not the action of biting me sends you into a feral frenzy. You need not draw much blood to know.”When Hannibal finds out that Will is a vampire surviving off of cold blood bags for fear of going feral, he offers to act as a test subject to prove that fresh blood won't cause a feeding frenzy. Will refuses, of course, but Hannibal has more than one reason to convince Will to drink from him - and what Hannibal wants, Hannibal gets.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Series: Hannigram Big/Reverse Bangs [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1552912
Comments: 14
Kudos: 279
Collections: Hannigram A/B/O Reverse Bang 2020





	1. How To Catch A Vampire

**Author's Note:**

> This is my entry to the [2020 Hannigram A/B/O Reverse Bang!](https://hannigram-a-b-o-library.tumblr.com/post/188104800871/hannigram-a-b-o-library-hannigram-abo-reverse)
> 
> I was inspired by the gorgeous art of the amazing [TCbook](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TCbook), which you can find here on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Tc_book/status/1279196459691323392) or [Tumblr](https://tcbook.tumblr.com/post/622665237383036928/sweet-as-blood-upon-the-tongue-for-the)! Thank you, my darling, for letting me go wild with vampires <3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal learns a thing about Will and, as usual, changes his entire plan.

Hannibal has many plans for Will Graham, the first time he visits the man’s house with a bag of sausage and a ring of keys. He’s an excellent source of information into the hunt for Hannibal’s alter ego, which makes him a useful fountain to visit. He’s also a deeply distrustful being, which makes him a flattering beast to get close to. And he is, of course, a cocktail of very intriguing neuroses, which makes him a very interesting mirror to peer into. 

But if Hannibal has learned anything, it’s that a home can divulge secrets in a way a person never could. Will might deny or dodge or distract, and yet his home can be an open book for Hannibal to read.

The first page of said book is a rather long trip. Hannibal has traveled further, of course, for the Chesapeake Ripper is by no means bound to state lines, but it says a lot that Will lives quite so far away from his job, his friends, and most of civilization. The second page of Will’s book is filled by his many dogs. They are curious beasts – not guard dogs, for although they regard Hannibal with suspicion, they are not like the dragon that coils around treasure but rather the hawk that bounds off the branch for the first flight – and readily accept him once he scatters delicious meaty treats for their hungry stomachs. The third page of Will’s book is his casual, almost old-fashioned style of homemaking. His furniture is old and well-loved, his walls faded and faint, his wardrobe as simple as a hermit who might never set foot in the city. 

And the fourth page, well. That page reveals itself when Hannibal opens the refrigerator.

“A curious creature, indeed,” Hannibal says, because the racks in the fridge are filled to the brim with blood bags, carefully labeled and relatively fresh. Hannibal can tell at a glance that they are not medical grade – the labels say nothing of the date harvested or the blood type – but they do have little labels that boast of flavors that appeal to the “predator within” or the “creature of the night”. 

There’s only one reason to have so many blood bags inside one’s home after all.

Hannibal closes the refrigerator and breathes. He does have plans for Will – plans that involve lights and cameras and a bright flash to distract from the dark seas below – but having plans for a human and having plans for a vampire are two very different things. Especially for a vampire like Will, who tries to pass as human and must drink blood at least every other day to still smell like a human and carry the blush of blood in his cheeks. 

Hannibal turns to examine the last living room, and that is where he spots a curious apparatus. An enormous raised magnifying glass, perched over a tuft of orange and black suspended in the grasp of a black and gold arm, rests on a desk scattered with more tiny objects. When Hannibal gets closer, he can see that Will has a collection of tiny feathers and bones and colorful scraps, and when he peers through the magnifying glass, he sees a black hook twined tightly with an orange and red feather.

It’s instinct then, honed from long hours arranging his wardrobe and setting out his daily suits and being dressed up by his tailor, that drives him to twine another striped feather upon the hook, matching the black of the hook with the orange of the feather. A few turns of thread, and the lure is complete, with a vague echo of the satisfaction Hannibal feels after a good hunt. 

A fisherman vampire, his Will is. Hannibal concede that the imagery such an idea conjures is fairly amusing, for vampires were made to hunt, and yet Will wiles away the years of immortality twining together lures for prey he cannot eat. And functional lures, too, for the hook is sharp and barbed and could easily snare a fish.

On a whim, Hannibal presses the sharp point to his thumb. It slides in smooth as butter, blood welling up from the puncture, and Hannibal imagines what it would be like to be prey, to be caught, to wriggle on the end of a line and know that one was hooked with no chance of escape.

He wonders what it would be like to feel a fang sliding in as smoothly as the hook. 

And as Hannibal sucks the blood off his thumb, waiting for it to heal, a new plan slides into place in his mind, and Hannibal smiles.

* * *

Maneuvering Will to align with Hannibal’s new plan is, quite sadly, fairly easy. For all of Will’s brilliant powers of observation, it appears some truths remain just out of reach, and for however many years Will has been alive, clearly he has forgotten what it is like to be human: to be spontaneous, to be deceitful, to be wicked. It’s almost laughably easy for Hannibal to bring up Will’s true nature.

“You, uh, found my blood stock, didn’t you?” Will asks, shoulder curved in defensively, shirt wrinkled and pants stained. 

Hannibal lets himself wince, slouching and pulling inward. In reality, Hannibal has killed human and vampire alike; he has no fear of one like Will. But fear can lure in a hunter as easily as anything else, especially when an omega pretends fear of an alpha. “Yes, I did,” he says. “I was planning to store some of my food for your dogs in the refrigerator, so that it would make my future trips easier. But, well. It appears your refrigerator was . . . otherwise occupied.”

Will rubs his palms on his legs. It’s a nervous tic, but more importantly a human one; it makes Hannibal wonder just how long Will has been a vampire. Most vampires shed human behaviors as time goes on, for why blink if you have no need to? 

“The Academy sends me biweekly shipments,” Will explains to the floor, still shying from Hannibal’s gaze. “Policy. Can’t be on the payroll for human students if you’re not full to bursting to remove, ah, temptation.”

“And were you? Tempted?”

Will makes a face. For a man who disdains company, his face is so beautifully expressive; Hannibal can tell at a glance that he was at once reassured and irritated by the FBI’s insistence on an overwhelming blood supply. On one hand, blood isn’t cheap, given that although it’s not medical grade it’s still regulated to avoid the blood farms of olden days; on the other hand, there are plenty of blood bars where pretty young things will let almost anyone feed from them for a price, even if the price is just the high of vampire venom. 

“No,” Will answers eventually, fingers drumming restlessly on the chair. “It’s bad enough that my . . . problem makes me see killers in every crime scene and ghosts in every case. I don’t need the added difficulty of tasting the memories of those I feed from. Blood bags are cold and clinical, and that’s how I like them.”

Hannibal hums sympathetically. “You would prefer a clean feed, then.”

“Have you ever seen a feral vampire?” Will retorts. “I’m sure you have; everyone tries to save the victims even when they’re torn half to shreds. They just – they practically rip off people’s heads when they feed.”

Hannibal has, of course, but that’s not the point. He leans forward. “But you are not feral, Will.”

Will snorts and pushes himself to his feet. He paces to the wall and back, short jerky steps of agitation. Hannibal can read a world of fear in that response, but add too much wood to any fire and the risk of burning a meal is greater than the reward of a shorter cooking time. So he simply says nothing, watching silently as Will paces.

Finally, when Will does speak, it’s a harsh whisper, dragged from the depths of his mind. “Not right now,” he says. “But there’s a feral creature in all of us undead. There’s a reason why vampires are discouraged from being front line responders.”

“An honest fear,” Hannibal acknowledges. “But not necessarily one backed up by science.”

Will stops at that, spinning to face Hannibal with one eyebrow raised. “You’re telling me you don’t believe a vampire could go feral if faced with a victim spurting blood everywhere?” Will asks incredulously.

 _Hook,_ Hannibal thinks. _And now the line._

Hannibal rises then, but slowly, carefully, gracefully. It would appear slower than normal to any human, but of course to a vampire it would demonstrate a lack of fear. Hannibal does everything as he usually does – he tugs gently at his waistcoat, he smooths his pants, he straightens his spine. Then he approaches Will, softly, gently, as a hunter inches towards a doe in the brush convinced that it is hidden and safe.

“I believe,” Hannibal says quietly, “that there is a feral beast in us all. Yet not all of us go wild when a tender belly is presented. It is merely a matter of control, learned through years and years of dedication. If alpha humans could learn to control themselves around omegas, it goes to follow that vampires could learn to control themselves around human.”

“I would prefer,” Will replies, “to remove temptation altogether. That’s why I’m on suppressants.”

“And what if temptation were to come to you – a temptation for which there is no suppressant? Abigail Hobbs is likely to be far from the only victim you met whose blood is a siren call to you.”

“I was well fed that day.”

“Do you take blood bags with you on long travels?”

“What? No. It’s not exactly . . . TSA approved.”

“Then can you guarantee that there will be a day when you answer Jack’s call and find yourself staring temptation in the face, a fountain that you cannot ignore?”

Hannibal is so close now that he can make out each tiny movement in Will’s throat as he swallows. Another human response, a sign of unsteadiness and fear. Hannibal wonders if this is what the vampire hunters of old felt like when they cornered their prey, back before they were disbanded when vampires came into the light and, more importantly, started paying taxes and bribes and campaign donations. 

Still, Will is nothing if not stubborn. He tilts his head to meet Hannibal’s eyes. “And what are you suggesting, Dr. Lecter? That I, what, _normalize_ the sensation of feeding to learn control?”

“I have seen it in medical circles,” Hannibal says, almost off-hand. 

Will blinks, thrown. “They do studies on this?”

“Vampires – at least the ones we know about – make up at least a third of the population,” Hannibal notes. “There have been many studies on this issue, just as there have been many studies on the efficacy of vampire venom and synthesized blood.”

“Alright. Then do tell, Dr. Lecter. What were the results?”

Hannibal tucks his hands in his pocket and shrugs. “Mixed results, from what I can remember,” he says truthfully, because these studies are publicly available and he imagines Will might actually look them up. The fact that these studies also were stopped almost twenty years ago might be a harder nugget of information to find, so Hannibal forges ahead. “It’s not exactly quantifiable data, after all. We have a medical definition for a feral vampire, but it’s impossible to say exactly when one steps over the threshold aside from asking the vampire themselves, or by group consensus.”

“And I imagine it’d be hard to find test subjects,” Will grumbles.

“I have no objection to the idea.”

Will laughs, at that. His shoulders go abruptly loose and he sways where he stands, almost like the idea has given him a second wind. No doubt if he has ever fed from a living person, he has done so quickly and as clean as he can, eager to not loosen the chains upon the feral beast inside. He is unlikely to be familiar with the effects of vampire venom, aside from their anesthetic qualities. Hannibal, however, is familiar, especially with the effects that can drive those to frequent blood bars in hopes of being fed from and chasing the so-called “vampire high”, the addiction of pain leaching away and dopamine flooding the brain.

That is not, of course, why he seeks Will’s fangs, but it can be an added bonus.

Will’s laughter dies away shortly, mostly because his powers of observation, while dulled, are not absent around Hannibal. For all of the human habits he has retained, he is still undeniably a predator to his core, and vampires were born to hunt humans. He stares at Hannibal with ever-widening eyes.

“Were you – are you – was that you volunteering to be a – a human blood bag?” Will stammers.

“A human gauge,” Hannibal corrects swiftly. “As to whether or not the action of biting me sends you into a feral frenzy. You need not draw much blood to know.”

Will shakes his head. “Absolutely not. That’s . . . unethical.”

“It’s unethical to help my friend?” Hannibal counters. “It’s unethical to give him the tools to protect himself? It’s unethical to offer a solution I am uniquely qualified to give to a problem uniquely associated to you?”

Will’s face darkens. “You have no idea what you’re offering,” he growls, words thick and stubborn in his throat. 

“You’re correct,” Hannibal admits. “I have never been fed from before. It does make me curious as to the sensation. I have seen so many patients, and I have often wondered what drove them to offer their necks to vampire fangs.”

“I wouldn’t bite you on your _neck_ ,” Will says, sounding scandalized at the thought of going where only a mate should. “Your wrist would do.”

 _Line_ , Hannibal thinks, and in two swift movements he unbuttons his cuff and rolls up his sleeve. He extends his arm to Will, muscles relaxed and ready, and watches the way Will’s eyes dilate at the sight of his veins. “Very well,” Hannibal says, “wrist it is.”

“I don’t – but – I – Hannibal,” Will stutters weakly. He trembles, as if he means to flee, and yet he doesn’t move from where he is standing, as if his feet are planted in the ground. “You can’t be serious.”

“Would you prefer a finger?” Hannibal asks solicitously. 

He lifts his hand even closer to Will’s mouth, like a supplicant at the altar, and is not at all surprised when Will’s hand flashes up to grab it centimeters before it makes contact with his mouth. He is also not surprised to see the bulge of fangs against Will’s upper lip, the only tell that Hannibal and the proximity of his blood is having an effect on Will’s vampire nature. Yet Will does not push him away, does not refuse him, does not run away at the inhuman speed at which he is capable. He just stares, frozen like a statute, not even breathing, as the clock ticks in the corner.

Hannibal leans closer. This close, he can see every twitch in Will’s eyelashes, every expansion of his stomach as he breathes, every little movement of Will’s vampire side rising to the forefront.

“You would be doing us both a favor,” Hannibal murmurs. “I would not like to see you caged and muzzled as a feral vampire, Will. I would like to know that you understand that you are more than the monster inside. I would like you to be aware that control is within your grasp. I would like you to be free from this fear and embrace who you truly are.”

And Will – Will who left his comfortable, sedentary teaching post to roam the fields and plunge headfirst into the minds of killers at the behest of his good friend Jack Crawford – Will gives in so easily, and lets Hannibal move his hand the last few centimeters until he cups Will’s face. From there, it takes only the most miniscule of movements to push back Will’s upper lip and let his fang sink into Hannibal’s thumb.

 _And sinker,_ Hannibal thinks, and closes his eyes.

It is a sharp, clean pain, not unlike the hook, but whereas the hook was bracketed by stiff feather spines, Will’s fang is surrounded by the smooth, silky soft skin of his mouth, and Hannibal finds that he much prefers his vampire’s fangs to his vampire’s fishing hooks. Will doesn’t even drink from him; he stays as he is, tentative and still, as blood wells up his fang, until the first drop hits the floor and breaks the spell. 

At once Will jerks away, and Hannibal can’t help how he hisses at the sharp withdrawal. He takes a moment to raise his arm and press down to stop the flow, and by the time he turns back to Will, he finds that Will has taken the collar of his shirt and scrubbed frantically at his mouth and fang, removing all trace of Hannibal’s blood without drinking it. 

It strikes something deep within Hannibal, for although it would be no doubt detrimental to his plans for Will to actually drink his blood and taste Hannibal’s memories, some part of him is sad to see his blood go to waste outside of Will’s veins.

“There, you see,” Hannibal says casually. “Did you go feral, Will?”

In all honestly, Will looks like he might be on the verge of it. His eyes are wild and blown, his nostrils are flared and chest heaving despite his lack of need to breathe, and his fangs are peeking out beneath his lips. Yet slowly and surely Will collects himself, calming himself down until at last his fangs recede and Will is, once again, the picture of a normal, average, regular human. When he speaks again, Hannibal thinks anyone would be hard-pressed to know that he’d just sunk a fang into Hannibal’s skin.

“One experiment does not prove a theory,” Will says smartly, fiery as ever. “And your blood was hardly spurting all over the place.”

“Well, forgive me for not wanting to open a vein here,” Hannibal says. “I just had these floors cleaned.”

Will gives him a weird look for that, probably because he picks up on the unspoken implication that Hannibal totally would have opened a vein if they were in a more suitable environment, but he doesn’t pursue it. Perhaps he is spooked enough for tonight, but it matters not; Hannibal has what he needs.

Hannibal looks to the clock. “Ah, but that’s the end of our session,” he remarks. “Next week?”

Will is gone in a flurry of curls, inhuman speed whisking him out the door and down the steps, and Hannibal lets the rudeness slide, as he does so often when it comes to Will. Alphas, after all, tend to flee rather than stand their ground when confronting an omega, because although they might be superior in strength to an omega, society has long since drilled in the habit to hold back such strength around omegas. It’s a belief that has served Hannibal well, since alphas usually don’t think him a threat until it’s too late.

A few quick steps and Hannibal reaches his desk. He opens the lowest drawer and removes the false bottom, revealing the medical equipment below. He works as fast as he can, for vampire venom has dissipates quickly throughout the body, and Hannibal will need the highest percentage he can get for what needs to happen next.

As his blood fills the vials, Hannibal closes his eyes and hums, replaying in the glorious pain of Will’s fang piercing his skin. It’s unlikely he’ll ever get Will to agree to do it again, so he replays it again and again and again.

And then, when he has all the blood he needs, he gets to work.

* * *

It takes everything in Hannibal not to flinch or cease his work when the first officer finds him. The screams don’t bother him, for Hannibal’s victims often scream, but Hannibal has to create a very specific picture, and so even though more officers pour onto the scene and attempt to coax or yell at him, he continues working, diligently adding more and more stitches to the corpse tapestry below.

When they finally do wrench him away, Hannibal blinks dumbly into the bright lights and does not answer their questions, and he continues his charade of blind obedience all the way to the police station, where he stands placid as a doll as they fingerprint him and draw his blood.

It is only when he hears the sonorous echoes of Jack Crawford that Hannibal begins to “awaken”. He blinks and shivers and curls up, like an omega withdrawing into a nest, and trembles until the officer questioning him goes soft and gentle as he speaks. Hannibal pretends at first not to understand, for coming out of a thrall takes time, but eventually – after he knows the bloodwork will have come back – he lets himself accept the officer’s offer of coffee and begins to speak.

“What am I doing here?” he asks.

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” the officer replies. He’s an alpha, from his sharp scent to his thick muscle, and Hannibal can practically taste the pity emanating from him. “You were found standing over an FBI agent, Mister Lecter, a supposed victim of the Chesapeake Ripper.”

“I what? No, that can’t be,” Hannibal protests, tugging the ugly orange shock blanket closer. “I went home, I had dinner, and I went to sleep.”

“And you probably did,” the officer says calmly. “Or thought you did. Are you familiar with vampire enthrallment?”

“I’m a doctor.”

“I see. Well, then, have you had any contact recently with any vampires?”

“I have a few patients, but none of them would ever do that to me.”

The officer hums. “Well, it can be quite unexpected. Sometimes all it takes is one bite. Have you been bitten recently?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then how’d you get that wound on your finger?”

Hannibal looks down at his hand, feigning confusion and shock. The wound is mostly scabbed over by now, but when Hannibal presses upon it, he can see the blood pooling below. It’s undeniably a vampire’s mark. 

“I don’t . . . remember getting this,” Hannibal says, letting shame fill his tone. “I don’t – do you suspect me of being enthralled?”

“Lab confirms it. The venom’s faint, so it probably happened hours ago, but it was enough to get a trace sample.” 

The officer goes quiet then, probably trying to get his thoughts together. Hannibal cups his coffee in his hands and drinks through trembling fingers, the very picture of fear and confusion. He’s seen the power the imagery of a weak, fearful omega can hold over alphas, and he plays it up to every detail. 

“Listen, Dr. Lecter,” the officer says eventually, “everyone agrees you’re probably a victim in this. But listen to me, this is important: you could help us catch the Chesapeake Ripper, okay? He left evidence for probably the first time in years. I need you to try and remember what happened before you went home, who you crossed paths with, any vampire you saw. Any little detail could help.”

Hannibal pretends to think it over. “Well . . . I had my appointments as usual, then lunch, and then more appointments. Nothing out of the ordinary, I’m afraid.”

“And none of the appointments were vampires?”

“One was,” Hannibal says. “But he wouldn’t hurt me like that.”

“He?”

“No, he most certainly wouldn’t hurt me.”

“Who is he, Dr. Lecter?”

“Trust me, he’s incapable of hurting me. He’s an alpha, for god’s sake, no alpha would dare lay a hand on an omega.”

“ _Who is he, Dr. Lecter?_?” 

Hannibal recedes with a whine, reedy and thin. It’s not a full omega whine, because Hannibal has never done it in years and he’s rusty, but it’s enough to give the impression of reluctance and fear. The final thread, as it were, to Hannibal’s beautiful web of lies.

The officer leans back, breathing hard, trying to calm himself. “Please, Dr. Lecter. We need your help. Please let us help you in turn.”

Hannibal turns his face to the wall and squeezes his eyes tight. He is, he knows, the very picture of abject misery at the idea that a friend could inflict this upon him, and he knows that Jack Crawford, stationed behind the two-way mirror, is no doubt getting an eyeful of this picture. It’s just what Hannibal needs to start the game.

“Will,” Hannibal whispers. “Agent – Agent William Graham. He was . . . my last appointment.”


	2. How To Catch A Human

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will gets revenge on Hannibal, and in more ways than one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Slight dubcon here. Hannibal has no issue with Will feeding off of him because he likes to see the killer vampire in Will, but given that Will has enthralled him, he can't exactly say no either. Just FYI.

Will has many plans for Hannibal Lecter, the first time he breaks into the man’s house with a gun and a length of chain. He is educated and charismatic, which makes him an interesting sounding board to speak to. He is incredibly controlled and keeps his cards close to his chest, which makes him a good person to be close to when the killers in Will’s mind grow too loud. 

And he is, of course, the human who framed Will as the Chesapeake Ripper and sent him to prison, which makes him the perfect target to exact revenge. 

Hannibal isn’t in his house when Will breaks in, which gives Will the perfect opportunity to do a little reconnaissance. If Will has learned anything, after all, it’s that a home can divulge secrets in a way a person never could. Hannibal might obstruct or oppose or obfuscate, and yet his home can be an open book for Will to read. 

The first place Will heads towards is the basement. He can smell the scent of death and blood wafting through the house, no longer covered up by Hannibal’s delicious cooking, and his vampire eyes can easily see where the door is. He doesn’t bother going in, because he already knows what he’ll find, but it’s nice to have confirmation of his theory. It’s not nice that Jack still refuses to believe him, but Will has lived long enough to know what battles to wage. There are much more efficient ways of dealing with Hannibal when one is both an alpha and a vampire. 

Vampire speed means that it takes Will little time to scout the rest of the house. Hannibal believes himself an apex predator, and so there is no alarm to disable, no guard dogs to sneak past, no weapons to hide. Not that any of those would have stopped Will, of course, given that he is well fed and could break Hannibal’s neck faster than the man could blink, but it does mean that it will be easier for Will to enact revenge. 

Reconnaissance done, Will then settles in to wait. 

When Hannibal enters his house, he heads straight to the kitchen, and so Will is ready to strike the second Hannibal reaches the refrigerator. He doesn’t bother concealing his presence, because the amount of effort it would take to hide his alpha pheromones to a keyed up omega would be beyond difficult, and so as soon as Will appears from the shadows, he sees Hannibal pause, inhale, and go still as a statute.

“You’ve cast aside your aftershave,” Hannibal says, calm as the open sea on a sunny day. “And your suppressants.”

“Well, everyone now knows I’m an alpha vampire,” Will replies, just as calm. “Thanks to you and Freddie Lounds. So there doesn’t seem to be much point to hiding anymore. You did want me to . . . how did you put it . . . embrace who I was.”

“And yet here you come to me,” Hannibal says, turning around, wine glass still in hand, “with a weapon you do not need.”

Will glances at the gun. It’s the weapon of a cop and an FBI agent, roles Will tried to fill like squares in a pegboard, until he found out that he was too odd-shaped to ever fit in. Will shrugs and sets the gun down. 

“I figured it would give me a convenient back up plan,” Will admits. “If you don’t want someone to know that a vampire killed a victim, you empty a clip into the wound, and suddenly, it doesn’t look like a bite wound at all. Just another poor soul who fell victim to gun violence.”

Hannibal’s face doesn’t change. Neither does his scent, smoky like a wood fire and sharp like lemon. He isn’t on suppressants either, clearly, and his scent calls to Will the way only an omega’s can. But Will went through the police academy, and he knows better than to lose control to the siren call of an omega.

Hannibal sets the wine glass down, very delicately, like a proper omega. “And how would you feel? Killing me?”

Vampires don’t dream, of course. They don’t even need sleep, unless they are so grievously wounded or lacking in fresh blood that they slip into a regenerative coma. But they can daydream, as any human can, and Will spent hours in his cold, dark cell doing just that. He could kill Hannibal in a thousand ways, each worse than the last, and keep him alive for all of it. Hell, he could grab Hannibal right now and dash his brain against the ground so hard that his skull crumbled to dust. 

But that is not why Will came today.

“I would feel . . . righteous,” Will answers, taking a step closer, because it is true. In olden days, when vampires first came into the light, it was considered righteous for them to feed off of criminals and murderers, so righteous that oftentimes beside the guillotine and the noose was the altar where vampires fed as the public cheered and chanted. “But it would be a hollow victory. We are not gods.”

Will can tell it’s not the answer Hannibal expected, mostly because he pauses just a fraction too long before he changes tack. It feels good, though, to catch him off-guard. 

It also feels good that Hannibal does not shy away from him, which will make it easier for the next part of Will’s plan.

“Aren’t you curious, Will? About why you? Why Miriam Lass?”

“Not really,” Will says. “I already know why me. As to Miriam Lass, well. Self-preservation drives omegas as well as alphas. How did she find you, Hannibal? I imagine you made sure no one could ever find you that way again.”

Hannibal blinks, slow and satisfied like a cat. It’s all the confirmation Will needs.

“If I am not the Ripper,” Hannibal begins.

“But you are,” Will interrupts, because this – this is important. Everything that comes with being a vampire involves embracing truth, and the gift of enthrallment is no different. Without truth, there is no foundation for anything else, and Will’s always had a gift for the truth. “Don’t worry, Doctor, I’m not wearing a wire. They wouldn’t believe me if I asked for one, anyways. Besides . . . I don’t need the FBI to do what I came here to do.”

Will steps up close, closer than he has ever dared, until each inhale of Hannibal’s presses their chests flush together, and leans down to sniff at Hannibal’s neck. His pure, clean, unblemished neck, the kind that makes alphas leer and vampires drool.

Hannibal turns his head away, partially on instinct, partially on calculation. Will knows that he probably imagines he can avoid enthrallment without eye contact, but, well, there are some secrets that vampires keep among themselves. Secrets that not even the great Chesapeake Ripper could have pried out of his victims, vampire or no.

“Oh, don’t look away now,” Will croons, letting the subtle flavoring in his voice rise to a crescendo. “Don’t be shy, Hannibal. You’ve always been so bold with me before. You even went to the trouble of painting me with the label of thrallmaster, controller of humans, collector of souls, the maestro behind the scenes! I might as well live up to your label.”

Hannibal’s neck goes stiff and tight as he attempts to fight the command. But if he really wanted to avoid it, he should have stopped listening to Will ages ago, because he was hooked from the moment he engaged in conversation with Will, and now all that is left is for Will to reel him in and sink his fangs into his fresh catch. Slowly, bit by bit, Hannibal’s head moves, until he stares at Will with simmering emotion in his eyes.

“You see,” Will explains, “enthrallment is . . . not really what we’ve led humans to believe. I mean, sure, venom helps. It puts our victims in a . . . suggestive state, helps dull their reflexes to push the predator away, helps stifle their reaction to whatever is being asked. But in reality, we could do it by voice alone. And this is just by speaking. Imagine if I sang, Hannibal, imagine what I could make you do.”

Hannibal’s jaw works, but he does not speak. Mostly this is because Will hasn’t asked him a question, but Will imagines that his hand, now tight upon the back of Hannibal’s neck, is also a factor.

“You humans have stories of sirens of old. And they were quite beautiful, from what my sire told me, fierce as a winter storm and lovely as a summer day. They’re all gone now, of course, but oh, when they were here . . . the things they taught our kind. The things they passed on to our kind’s children and their children, until it became inseparable from who we were, down to the venom in our fangs and the long life in our veins.” Will strokes Hannibal’s neck, reveling in the sharp, acid scent of his uncertainty. “Now, don’t struggle for me, my darling. I wouldn’t like to ruin your pretty neck. You did, after all, want to know what it was like to be fed upon. What do you say to a live demonstration?”

“Will – ”

“Truthful answers only,” Will adds, watching as Hannibal’s eyes dilate.

A dreamy smile fills Hannibal’s face, and he goes as limp as a noodle in Will’s arms. Even as a human, he would have susceptible to Will as an omega is to an alpha; as a human, he’s practically a treasure ripe for the taking. Even now, the uncertainty is bleeding away, replaced by the cotton candy scent of dazed contentment and drugged happiness.

“Yes,” Hannibal breathes.

“Well,” Will says, “and who am I refuse that?”

He lets Hannibal go then, mostly because he has better plans than to just sink his teeth into Hannibal in the kitchen of all places, and Hannibal stands there like a doll, dazed and smiling and utterly, completely caught. Will could tell Hannibal to cut off his own legs right now, and Hannibal would do it without hesitation or protest.

Fortunately for Hannibal, Will has better plans for Hannibal’s legs.

“Follow me,” Will says, backing away. 

Hannibal totters after him, stumbling like he’s drunk, but Will doesn’t slow down or stop. Enthrallment takes a while to settle into someone’s bones the way it settles into the mind, and if Hannibal had walked smoothly, it would be a sign that he had regained control of his mind. Of course, Hannibal’s muscle memory still knows his house, so he at least makes it upstairs and into his bedroom without incident.

Will settles himself in a chair, watching in satisfaction as Hannibal trails inside, pupils blown and smelling like the finest, most succulent feast. 

“Close the door and lock it please,” Will instructs. “We wouldn’t want to be . . . interrupted, would we?”

“No, Will,” Hannibal answers blindly, and does exactly that.

“Good work, darling. Now then: I could very easily slice through your clothing with my fangs, but that all seems rather tedious. Do me a favor and take it off, will you?”

“Yes, Will.”

It takes Hannibal an age and a half to strip down. Will is mostly bored by the end, because he’d known Hannibal wears a lot of layers but damn is that a lot of layers. Still, he doesn’t mind the unintentional strip show, because Hannibal strips with the utilitarian movement of changing clothes and obeying the command of his master, and Will can feel his fangs threatening to descend with each strip of revealed flesh.

“On the bed for me, my darling,” Will commands, when Hannibal stands before him naked as the day he was born, all that tempting flesh waiting to be bitten. 

Once Hannibal is there, sitting on his haunches and watching Will’s every movement with the sickening adoration of every enthralled human, Will strides up and retrieves the length of chain from where he tucked it under the bed. It’s made out of unicorn horn and kelpie hair, forged in the fires of a forge fed by a dying star, and it’s what Will’s maker, once upon a time, used to contain him until he successfully turned and learned control. It can’t be broken or severed, only bent, and it takes all of Will’s vampire strength to even do that. 

“You don’t mind if I chain you up, do you, darling?” Will asks. “In the interest of fairness, of course. You did take great joy in seeing me chained up.”

Hannibal, of course, just extends his arms, smiling faintly.

Will tsks. “No, no, I have better plans for those arms. Your ankle, please.” 

Hannibal obediently produces a leg, and so Will wraps one end around his ankle, bending it in place until it is one circle, before he takes the other end and bends that around the end of Hannibal’s bed. He tests it, just once, but it holds firm, as a proper chain should.

“There,” Will says in satisfaction. “Now even I choose to release you from enthrallment, you won’t run from me. Although you wouldn’t run anyways, would you?”

“No, Will,” Hannibal breathes, eyes bright and fingers twitching at his sides. 

“That’s what I thought,” Will says. He sheds his coat then, and his shoes, so that he can climb up on Hannibal’s bed unencumbered, and stares down at Hannibal. He’s so undeniably human this way, without his suits to give him armor or his sharp mind to give him weapons. Will can feel that feral urge to dig his fangs into every single part of Hannibal he can reach and drain him until he’s drier than a desert in a drought.

But he doesn’t. Because Hannibal showed him control.

“I should thank you, I suppose,” Will muses, tracing one finger down Hannibal’s chest. “You did prove that I could drink without going feral. It’s been a long time since I drank from a human properly – not since I turned, I think, ages ago. Do you think you could make it a good experience for me, my darling?”

“Oh, yes, Will,” Hannibal says. He arches upwards, neck beautifully on display, like an omega on their wedding night. “I can be anything for you.”

Will sighs. He lets his fangs descend and breathes in the scent of rich human blood. He can easily imagine how good it will taste, given that when he drinks the blood bags of humans who favor steak it’s already amazing. Hannibal’s blood, flavored with the meat of humans, must be even better.

“That’s good, Hannibal,” Will says, stroking his face. “Because I have a lot to ask of you. And, well. Once a human falls under our spell . . . it’s so much easier to do it again. All it takes is a little song, and you are ours forever.”

“I want that,” Hannibal says, like a child. “Please, Will.”

“And how can I refuse that?” Will says.

He leans down, sniffing alongside Hannibal’s neck, until he finds the perfect place. It’s along the side, beautiful and tempting, but far enough away from Hannibal’s bonding gland that he has no fear of accidentally mating with him. He bears his fangs and scrapes, very delicately, against the skin, just to see Hannibal shiver. 

“You wanted to know what it was like to be fed upon,” Will whispers. “Awaken, my darling, and know it for real.”

Hannibal’s screams as Will drains his blood in long pulses are even sweeter than his meat-rich blood.

And then, when he has all the blood he needs, he gets to work.

* * *

Will is expecting revenge, of course. Hannibal, upon finding himself bound with ties of affection to Abigail and Will, proceeded to cut off Abigail’s ear and frame Will for murder, so it makes sense that he would do his best to wriggle out of the ties binding him to Will, even though those ties are not so easily broken.

He is not, however, expecting Hannibal to send a goddamn man in a bone suit after him.

Sometimes, Will reflects as he pants above Randall Tier’s cooling corpse, even tasting someone’s memories does not give Will a full measure of them as a person. He’d seen the various plans Hannibal had for him, of course, but they were all more of the . . . courting variety, up until the moment Will had opened his mouth and poured his song of enthrallment into Hannibal’s all-too-willing ears. He’d never expected Hannibal to send a challenger.

Then again, Randall is hardly a good challenger. The bone suit honestly must’ve done more damage to Randall’s joints as he trudged through the snow than it did to Will’s vampire skin.

Still, the anger in Will is not so easily cooled by Randall’s death, so he bandages poor Buster, tapes up a sheet over his broken window, and then makes his way to Hannibal’s house with Randall draped over his back. It’s no harder this time than last to break into Hannibal’s house; Will has a key now, because he told Hannibal to make him one and Hannibal could not refuse him, but Will breaks in anyways because he’s still mad.

“Really?” Will demands the second Hannibal makes it into the room, curious about the noise and scent of death. “You really thought _this_ human could kill me?”

Hannibal sniffs. “In the days of old, it was proper for omegas to set a task for their alphas,” he says primly. “To weed out the weak and reveal the strong, so that they would know their mate was worth the trials of childbirth and childrearing. I have observed that vampires tend to favor the older rituals of the world.”

It’s not, by any stretch of the imagination, what Will expected to hear. Derailed, he stares at Hannibal, his anger evaporating like dew under the morning sun. “You wanted to test me?”

“Well, and to balance the scales,” Hannibal admits, peering closer to admire where Randall’s bone suit is broken. “You sent Matthew Brown after me.”

“I was mad,” Will says.

Hannibal tilts his head and smiles. “So was I.”

“You little – ” Will groans and scrubs a hand over his face. “I can’t even mate with you, Hannibal. You’re a human. My alpha pheromones might work on you, but your omega ones hardly even register to me – and you’d have to have vampire strength to even contemplate breaking my skin to open my bonding gland,” he adds, to curb the intrigued light in Hannibal’s eyes.

Hannibal shrugs; the bastard probably doesn’t even mind, given that Will tasted so many plans within plans within plans in his blood. “There still is the matter of balancing the scales for Matthew.”

“Well, fine. Then we’re even now. You sent a killer after me, I sent a killer after you. Do you have any more plans that might endanger my dogs and damage my house?”

“No.”

And, well, Will doesn’t even need vampire senses to know that that is a bold-faced lie. He glares at Hannibal’s smug face. “Do I need to enthrall you again?”

“I can’t lie to you.”

“Not when I enthrall you, that’s right. And I am hungry now. What do you say to that, my darling?” Will asks, and watches as Hannibal’s throat bobs as he swallows. Hannibal is already half under his spell whenever hears Will’s voice; he is Will’s forever now, bound to him by voice and blood and venom. Even if Randall had succeeded in killing Will, the door in Hannibal’s mind that Will opened by song would remain open, and every vampire would know it just by looking at him.

Still, he is getting better at resisting in the beginning stages. “I can prepare you a meal,” Hannibal forces out between gritted teeth. “Would you let Randall go to waste?”

“Dead man’s blood doesn’t appeal to my kind,” Will purrs, stepping around the table just to see Hannibal retreat in a circle that has no end and no escape. “And dead man’s flesh does not nourish me. I prefer the rich blood of the thrall who stands before me and dares to challenge me with his words and actions.”

“All creatures were meant to be challenged.”

“But that is not what I desire from you, Hannibal,” Will says. “Right now, what I desire from my thrall is for him to bear his throat and let me drink my fill. Come here.”

Hannibal grips the table so tightly that his knuckles go white. He still isn’t completely under Will’s spell yet, but neither can he truly resist. It doesn’t really matter to Will, of course; Hannibal can’t tell anyone about his enthrallment any more than he can escape it, and that’s just as Will wants. And it’s so much more delicious to watch Hannibal fight and resist obeying him than it is to put him under and watch him smile blankly.

“Come here, my darling,” Will croons. He settles upon the table and taps the floor with his foot. “Kneel before me and let me have a drink. I’m parched. Don’t you want to obey me?”

Hannibal stutters forward, drawn in by the spell of Will’s words, but he catches himself upon the table again. “No,” he says. “I want to make you a meal to honor your victory.”

“You are my meal to honor my victory,” Will says sharply, baring his fangs at Hannibal to demonstrate his impatience. “Now stop resisting and come here, Hannibal, or this time I’ll drain you dry and leave you to rot in the garden.”

“ _No,_ ” Hannibal says, like it takes every ounce of willpower. “I want to cook for you.”

Which is when Will loses his patience and clears the table in a single bound, seizing Hannibal by the neck and slamming him to the ground. He protects Hannibal’s head, of course, but before Hannibal can even cry out, Will has his fangs in Hannibal’s neck, gorging on the fountain of blood as well as Hannibal’s cries of pain and ecstasy as Will’s venom flows into his veins. He can taste the spice of Hannibal’s pleasured surprise at Will defeating Randall, the sweetness of his desire to obey his vampire and his alpha, and above all, the richness of Hannibal’s meat-based diet, and so Will drinks and drinks and drinks, until Hannibal’s cries go silent and his hands fall limply to the floor.

By the time Will is done, Hannibal’s heart rate is so slow that Will, even with his vampire senses, has to press his head to Hannibal’s chest to hear it. So Wil sits back on his heels and thinks.

On one hand, with Hannibal gone from this life, it neatly rids Will of a humongous problem and pain in the butt. Will could easily dispose of the corpse, quit his job, and move to a new country to get on with his life, enjoying immortality and sometimes thinking of the human who had dared to frame him for murder. It’s not like he’d be the first vampire to kill a thrall and cover it up. 

On the other hand, with Hannibal gone from this life, well . . . it also rids Will of a very tasty snack, because there’s no way to bring Hannibal back from being drained quite so thoroughly. Even if Will were to run Hannibal to a hospital and demand transfusions, Hannibal would never make it.

Will licks his lips. Each drop of Hannibal in his mouth is rich with emotions, and yet even as he faded, Will had sensed no fear from Hannibal, just the ever-present joy of watching Will be Will.

A surprise, as always, but then again, Hannibal is always surprising. 

Will has lived for so long that most murderers are boring by definition; humans tend to fall into patterns when they kill, and those patterns hold constant across the centuries. Cheat on a partner, and boom, murder. Have a lot of gold in your house for anyone to see and steal, and boom, murder. It’s all very . . . pedestrian.

Yet Hannibal never is – even his first kills, before he developed his signature flare, made Will curious. 

Will looks down at Hannibal’s still body and wonders what it would be like to see him rise again as a vampire – to see his eyes blood-red with the feral madness of a newborn vampire; to see his skin like silk-clad marble, impenetrable and beautiful; to see his killer instincts backed up with inhuman speed and strength. To see Hannibal gorge himself on a human, ripping apart meat from bone to get to the nourishing lifeblood, and make a mess of everything within a mile long radius. 

Maybe, perhaps, to see Hannibal still choose Will, even as a vampire, and dig his teeth into Will’s bonding gland and make them truly one, for all eternity.

Will considers not being alone anymore. He considers having an eternal partner to challenge him. He considers turning Hannibal just to see what happens, what havoc he can wreak, what destruction he can bring, what joy he can inspire. 

And in the end, well, there really isn’t any other path forward but one.

One that Hannibal probably counted on when he made Will angry and then defied him point blank.

“You’re still a bastard,” Will tells Hannibal.

And then he leans down and fits his fangs back to Hannibal’s neck and starts the arduous process of turning his first vampire.


	3. How To Catch A Mate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal and Will celebrate with a murder because why not.

Hannibal wakes up _ravenous_ , which is, all in honesty, quite a welcome sensation. He had thought, as Will gulped down his blood like a dehydrated man in the desert, that he might die, that Will might drink every last drop and then leave him to rot in the ground, as he once threatened. Yet he is, in fact, alive, and quite hungry, although when he opens his eyes he finds that he is once again tied to the wall with Will’s chain. 

Hannibal pulls on it, mostly just because he can, and finds that it does not bend. Will has never said what it is – he tormented Hannibal for a week, bound in his bed and weak from repeated feedings, before Will took the chain away and left Hannibal bound by even stronger chains upon his mind – but Hannibal could tell, even as a human, that it was special.

He sits up, looking for Will, and finds himself alone. He is almost in the exact same position he was when Will first caught him: naked, and bound, and with the song of a vampire ringing in his ears. There is also a deep, deep ache in his neck, like Will had bitten straight down to the bone in his anger, and Hannibal catalogues in the ache in his growing library of wounds by vampire fang. Will has been most helpful in providing a wide variety of samples, from playful nips on Hannibal’s wrist when Will is bored to perfunctory bites on his arm when Will is hungry. This savage, deep, painful ache is new, but Hannibal relishes the feeling, just as he relished the sight of Will’s anger when he dragged Tier’s dead body in. Truly, there is no better sight than a predator come into his own, and Will has certainly done so.

A noise catches his attention, and Hannibal turns to the door just in time to see Will manhandle a struggling, cursing man through the door. Or, to be honest, more like casually dropkick, for Will is much stronger than any human, and the ease with which he moves the man around tells Hannibal immediately that the man is human.

The man also smells utterly _divine_ , and Hannibal can’t quite help the way he licks his teeth.

“Good morning, Hannibal,” Will says cheerfully. He nudges the still struggling and bound man with his foot. “I’ve brought you breakfast. I also lined the floor with plastic, so, you know. Go wild.”

Hannibal blinks. Of course, Will has brought him food before, so that Hannibal would continue to be a source of blood, but usually it isn’t still squirming and alive. Sometimes it is raw, but Will has never hesitated to let Hannibal cook.

“I would need a stove, Will,” he says, pulling pointedly at his chained leg. 

Will tilts his head. A strange smile fills his face, even as he steps on the bound man with one foot and prevents him from wriggling away. “You only need one form of sustenance now, my darling,” Will says, not unkindly. “He’s repulsive, to be sure, but his diet is rich with meat, and you can’t catch anything from him.”

Curiosity drives Hannibal off the bed. Will gave him a lot more length, this time, and so Hannibal can prowl right up to the struggling man, where a quick glance at his face confirms his identity.

“You kidnapped Mason Verger?”

“You can’t tell me you didn’t think him rude,” Will remarks. “I’ve tasted your recollections of him.”

“I still need a knife,” Hannibal protests. “Otherwise harvesting food will take me . . . a while.”

Will steps closer to him, his smile never fading. Very gently, he takes one of Hannibal’s hands and caresses his fingers. His touch is like sparks against wood; Hannibal feels suddenly no longer woozy or drained at all, but instead energized, like he’s ready to take on the entire world and burn it all.

“Your tools are here, Hannibal,” Will murmurs. He lifts a hand to Hannibal’s cheek and strokes him there too, just like Hannibal once did when he coaxed Will to bite him for the first time. “And here. You need nothing else, as I do.”

A sharp pain fills Hannibal’s jaw. He tries to jerk back, out of reflex, but Will holds him tight.

“Yes, it hurts the first time,” Will says, bland as though discussing the weather. “But you’ll get used to it. You’re very good at adapting, after all.”

“And what,” Hannibal says, not quite daring to believe what his senses are telling him, “exactly am I . . . adapting to, Will?”

Will’s smile broadens, until Hannibal see his fangs poking out. “Why,” he says, “life as a vampire, of course. And the most important step is a good first meal. So feast your heart out, Hannibal; it’s time you properly dined upon the rude.”

Will steps aside then, bowing and extending his hand like he’s welcoming Hannibal to a fancy gala, but everything inside of Hannibal comes alive at the sight and the smell of Mason, who is yelling words into his gag and wriggling on the ground like a worm on the hook. There are several scratches upon his face and bruises down his chest; Will must have fought with him, just to toy with him perhaps, for there is no way Mason could have ever defeated Will. The scent of blood causes Hannibal to move without conscious thought, and in seconds he finds himself pinning Mason down, baring his new fangs the exact way he’s seen Will do.

Then he notices that Will is standing off to the side and frowns. “Are you not going to join me?”

Will tilts his head. “Most omegas don’t like sharing their dinners.”

“I have no objection to sharing a meal with my alpha,” Hannibal says, thrilled at the pleased dark light that flares to life in Will’s eyes. “My alpha hunted and brought back a fine pig. I would share this meal with him.”

“And how can I refuse that?” Will purrs, and he prowls forward until he is at Mason’s other side, his fangs glinting in the light. “Together?”

“Oh, yes,” Hannibal says.

As one, they reduce Mason to an empty husk, although Will pulls back earlier so that Hannibal can get the lion’s share. It doesn’t bother Hannibal at all, for to have his alpha watching over him and protecting his back as he fills his belly soothes the omega instincts inside. It’s even better when Will comes around with a damp towel once Hannibal has tossed Mason aside, and dabs gently at his face and neck to clean the flecks of blood that found their way to Hannibal’s skin and not his mouth, victims of Hannibal’s inexperience with using fangs.

When he is done, Will sets down the towel and settles back on his knees in front of Hannibal. “Do you still want to run away with me?”

“That depends on whether you intend to turn me in,” Hannibal replies truthfully.

Will snorts. “That option died the second I decided to enthrall you,” Will says. “Your testimony would never be admissible now that it’s tainted by me. And besides, mates never turn upon each other.”

“I have not bitten you.” Hannibal wants to, though; even now, with the blood all drained from Mason’s corpse, his fangs are still heavy in his mouth, drawn to the idea of piercing Will’s skin and marking them as bonded forever.

“I’ll let you, if you still want me,” Will says. “But not here, and not now.”

Hannibal is baring his teeth before he knows it. He’d understood, of course, that newly turned vampires are vicious creatures, and that it takes a powerful sire and a strong hand to control them, but that academic understanding absorbed from dry medical books is nothing compared to the bloodlust thrumming under his skin that demands that he take what he wants right now, and kill everything and everyone that tries to stop him. 

“Why not?” he says. 

Fortunately, Will doesn’t seem to be offended. He tilts his head and smiles. “If you think heats are bad as a human omega,” Will says ruefully, “they’re even worse as a vampire. We don’t need to breathe or eat, Hannibal; I’ve seen entire houses destroyed when omega vampires go into heat and every single ounce of their willpower focuses upon their alpha. And if you bite me or I bite you, you will go into heat.”

Hannibal hums. “Well, I have been meaning to remodel my house.”

“Not here, and not now,” Will repeats with a laugh. “Let’s find a good place to honeymoon. Run away and let the rumors die down and start a new life, somewhere. We can come back, when you want to play, or when you get bored of showing me the world.”

There’s a tinge of uncertainty in Will’s voice there, small and tiny and almost nonexistent, but Hannibal had excellent hearing even before he became a vampire, and to him it rings as loud as a smoke alarm in the darkness. 

“Oh, my darling Will,” Hannibal says, and kisses Will’s hand. “I could never be bored of you. I chose you, remember?”

“More like you framed me for murder,” Will mutters, but there’s no heat in his voice. A purr thrums through his throat as he nudges his cheek against Hannibal’s. “So where to first?”

“Would it matter what I said?”

“No,” Will says. “But it’d be nice to know, all the same.”

There are so many possibilities that it almost makes Hannibal’s head spin. But he reminds himself that they have eternity now, years upon years upon years to see everything Hannibal might wish to show Will or that Will might wish to show Hannibal. So he closes his eyes and plucks a destination out of his mind palace.

“Florence, I think. I would like to show you Florence.”

“Then,” Will says, “to Florence we will go.”

FINIS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: And after that, Will and Hannibal go and have a very happy, murdery, bloody honeymoon around the world. They - and the Chesapeake Ripper - long outlive Jack and everybody else at the FBI, and centuries later are still holding very-not-vegetarian dinner parties that consist of fish that Will lures and meat that Hannibal hunts.

**Author's Note:**

> HUGE THANKS to the mods of the Hannigram A/B/O Reverse Bang! And all of my love and appreciation to my wonderful artist, TCbook, who looked at all of my weird as hell supernatural ideas and went "YES GO DO IT". Finally, thanks to my friends who cheered me on while writing this.
> 
> All typos and continuity errors are mine. This fic was written entirely by me going "wheeeeee" and gleefully putting words to text, no outlining or planning involved.
> 
> Check out the other amazing works in the [A/B/O Reverse Bang collection](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/HannigramABORB2020), cuz they're pretty amazing.
> 
> Find me @ Telegram as TheSilverQueen : [Pillowfort as TheSilverQueen](https://www.pillowfort.social/thesilverqueen) : [Tumblr as thesilverqueenlady](http://thesilverqueenlady.tumblr.com) : [Twitter as silverqueenlady](https://twitter.com/silverqueenlady) : [NewTumbl as thesilverqueen](https://thesilverqueen.newtumbl.com/) : [Dreamwidth as thesilverqueenlady](https://thesilverqueenlady.dreamwidth.org/)


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